I've Got Something To Say-Best Practices

With both, knowing and understanding them, the choice to adopt them is yours.​Knowledge really is power in the grande scheme of things.​When you've got something to say that's based in years of lived and learned experience, education, and observation - sharing it is the best way forward.

As many of you readers know, I decided that this year I’d take a few days off for the Mother’s Day holiday to simply rest, recharge, and have a bit of fun with my kid. After all, it’s my theory that not only should children know that you’re a hard worker, but they should also know that you’re able to lean in on your ability to draw boundaries and have some fun as well! You know, tap into those super powers!

While taking time off, I gave myself permission to simply meditate and to reflect on what my experience had been as a working mom over the years. Needless to say, I got an itch to write about it and so I wanted to share. The first thing I started writing about was my experience as a job seeker and then as a job recruiter which isn’t my only experience as a working mom nor what I initially thought I’d be writing about, but important enough so here we are! I was more drawn to talking about my lessons learned as someone that’s had to wear a “recruiter” hat for some time now. So to that point, I wanted to offer up a few thoughts. Recruiting is a bit tricky and extremely time consuming and so for those of you that want to go into the field of recruitment, take heed!

Recruiting & Recruitment Marketing When recruiting for new positions, it’s imperative that you’ve spent time to consider your recruitment strategy. In this day and age and as the economy continues to progress worldwide, recruiters are more and more being thrown into the world of marketing and advertising. We call this Recruitment Marketing.What this means is that good recruitment applies marketing best practices to create data-driven, dynamic, intelligent marketing programs to attract and engage the world’s best talent. Eh? I know! That was my initial response too until I realized that part of my way of thinking and going about recruitment as a whole has always been based in the fact that my formal education provided me with a Marketing concentration that I almost always tend to deploy. Go figure!

As of late, the marketplace has shifted and the reality is that candidates have choices too. As recruiters, we know that it’s no longer good enough to simply have a job that you can offer. Candidates want more and because of that, demand more engagement on many different fronts. The reality is that what candidates are often times seeking is their ability to maintain/have/share a level of:

Camaraderie;

Purpose;

Inspiration;

Transparency; and

Flexibility.

So the real question is, HOW in the hell will you paint a picture for a candidate that more than likely you’ve never met that touches on all of the above points? That’s the question of today!In trying to paint a clear picture from the initial point of contact with an applicant to the job offer itself being signed, what it continues to boil down to is your ability to illustrate just how awesome it would be for “YOU” as the applicant to come and work for “us” as the employer. So recruiters, you’ve got your work cut out for you!

Keeping all of the above in mind, let’s fast forward to today. At your organization, it’s been brought to your attention that there’s a position that you need to hire for ASAP. As the recruiter in charge, often times what that translates to is the following:

Time is of the essence.

Time is money. In this instance, money lost.

With staffing holes in an organization comes some sort of a reduction in productivity. How long will the staff be impacted due to capacity issues? What can we do about that in the interim?

The organization said it needed someone ASAP. Having worked in nonprofit presumably for some time now, more than likely, this actually means that the role needed to be filled yesterday! Pressures on!

Here are a few questions to consider before you post that open vacancy:

Are you clear on the role that you are hiring for and what gap/void do you intend on filling?

If you made this hire, who would this hire report to and why?

Who’s budget’s paying for this position?

What would a draft job posting & job description look like?

Is there a timeline? As in, when do we hope to bring in this new hire? Does this timeline take into consideration a “notice” period that most professionals will want to submit to their current employers? How about a transition period?

Who will be on the hiring committee? Do they have the time to interview and skill set to properly assess candidates?

What is your interviewing timeline? Is it manageable given all things going on internally at your organization? How about due to external factors? In essence, is this the right time to make this particular type of hire or is there a better time?

What will your hiring process look like? Will it need an initial screening process? Will you include a few test? A few interviews that include different folks on your staff? Will you need reference checks? A salary history?

When should you post the role? And, where should you post the role? Have you done extensive research to ensure that you’re posting your job on active job sites? How much are you willing to spend on job post? Will there be a period where you’ll be able to review job post site success to make sure that if need be, you’re able to pivot on demand?

Will you simply be posting jobs to active job sites or will you also be head hunting for the role? If head hunting, through what medium? Source? Network?

Have you reviewed your online job application to ensure that it’s easy to follow and for candidates to use? Is it straight-forward, short and simple?

Ultimately, recruitment isn’t just about figuring out what role you need to hire for and posting for that role. Recruitment is so much more. It’s the initial work to figure out what role you’ll be hiring for, it’s the leg work needed to get the role posted, it’s the countless hours spent on your recruitment strategy, and it’s the many hours worth of conversations you’ll end up having trying to paint that very picture of “why us” to name a few. In essence, make sure you’ve thought about your plan. And, more importantly, make sure that you understand what’s needed, the time considerations, the kinds of folks you want to hire, where you might be able to find the right candidates, and that you’re fully prepared to have a few conversations that converts an interested candidate to a candidate that’s actually applied for your role. After all, the hope is that with this much time and energy spent, you’ll walk away from this process with an amazing hire that can walk through the door and hit the ground running.​Want a thought partner or need some help with your processes, etc - let us know! Non Profit Infrastructure Consultants

​​A few weeks ago, I was reading a magazine and stumbled across an article about work-life balance. Depending on what generation you solicit to, you might also refer to this as work-life integration. Either way, the article tried to unpack the complexities associated with staff taking time off (vacation/discretionary). It tried to relate the act/idea of taking time off to the additional complexities of management’s expectations (perceived or real) of both, dedicated time spent and outputs (deliverables). Ultimately, what I was able to get out of the article based on my own set of experiences is that taking time off is complicated for your staff for many reasons and organizations better be paying close attention! Did you feel the eye roll? Yes, it's that serious!

My advice to employers not paying attention is that the cost of having to re-hire for the position you'll end up losing to burn out is going to cost you way more money and time then you just getting it together now. By creating an environment and a culture that supports self care and work boundaries, trust me, you'll save yourself a lot of drama, time, angst, and money. I'm just saying, it's worth thinking about. And for the record, ain't nobody productive after about 50 hours of work per week anyway! Not to mention, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), an astounding 40% of Americans alone say that their job is "very or extremely stressful," and 29% are "quite a bit or extremely stressed at work." (http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/99-101/) My question is if we know that stress is one of the number one things killing folks today (let alone slowly eating away moral, work place dynamics, productivity, quality of life, etc) and yet non profits as a whole aren't changing the patterns of behavior that encourage and increase it dramatically as employers, are you really best serving your staff and doing right by them in terms of your duty of care to them? Employers, that's a real question that deserves an honest answer.

As someone that’s had the pleasure of watching staff behavior over the years, what I can say is that more and more, staff just aren’t taking adequate vacation/time off. Instead, they are working harder, longer hours, and are constantly dialed into their social media/cell phones/emails, whatsapp, etc. to maintain a level of connection with what’s going on at work and in the world writ large. In essence, they are always on regardless of the generational trends they fold into. For many reasons, they just don't feel like they've been enabled to truly take the time off in a way that won't mean others on the team will be double burdened with excess workload or that there will be "hell to pay" in terms of work backlog once they return. As a consequence, non profits are seeing and reporting record breaking numbers of staff burn out as the years progress. Go figure! So, the real question is, are you paying close enough attention to your staff and being proactive when need be? After all, without these folks, how would you be able to forward your critical mission? How would you ascertain that funding? Would there even be anyone that makes up the organization or that helps to validate its purpose? Again, I'm just saying.

​Because stressed-out staff are ultimately not as effective on the job, organizations should really put together a real time strategy - with specifics - for helping people relax. Here are a few steps that might be helpful in starting your own brainstorming process:

1. Make sure to establish a clear standard - and stick to it!

Listen, flexibility doesn't mean working during your paid time off. And, along with staff health, results and productivity matter. Organizations won't achieve any of that if staff don't take real breaks. So, think about your standards and make sure that what you're saying, what you're doing, and your inherent expectations are all aligned and visible. It's important.

2. Set the example at the top, please.

It'll be super hard for your staff to feel they can simply unplug in full to recharge if they witness senior management answering calls and emails on their own breaks. Inherently, this creates a situation where no one wants to stand out. The tone is set by managers and leadership in organizations. So, if you want your staff to truly take care of self, you as a leader had better start with self and walk the walk. After all, whether it's expected that you'll answer emails on your break or not- the assumption is that if management is doing it, it must be. It's not about what you say, it's about what you do and how that translates to your staff's understanding for what's expected and what's not.

Managers and leaders should also avoid sending emails at 1am or working the weekends. Again, when you do it, it sends the message that maybe this is the expectation. Before you know it, others will feel some level of obligation to do so as well. If you're a manager and you need to write an email over the weekend, make sure to save it in your draft folder via email or Boomerang that puppy until the regular work day! Be creative. Don't be apart of the problem.

3. Make vacation/time off an expectation.

I know a lot of folks think that this is a luxury, but it's not. In my non humble opinion, it's a necessity if you care about maintaining a productive and healthy well-balanced staff.

My suggestion is that you all might want to consider monitoring vacation/time off allocations and insist that staff account for a lack of time off. In essence, you should always be asking the question, "What did you do to help yourself have more balance this year? How about to help your peers have more balance this year?"

Lastly, I really do believe that sound judgement and self care is imperative. A staff member's ability to take accountability for their vacation/time off and ensuring that it actually happens consistently should be a performance issue. It should be reviewed during evaluations because the impact of not taking time off to recharge inevitably becomes an issue of health and ultimately performance anyway.

4. Offer incentives.

Have you considered offering your staff a stipend so that they might be able to take their families or friends on vacation with them? It sure would be an incentive in my world. Thinking outside of the box on this is going to be key! How about offering cash bonuses to staff who take at least 8+ days off per year? Any other ideas?

5. Let staff help find solutions.

'Nuf said. :)

6. Talk about it.

Make sure you keep an open dialogue with your staff about the best ways to achieve productivity and personal happiness. In doing so, make sure you practice active listening and follow up on what they are saying as folks best positioned to give you good insight with regards to their needs.

7. Be flexible about flexibility.

Having a specific plan might be a great idea, however, make sure to leave room for adaptations and know that flexibility means different things to different people. Remember that while the older generations (most) might champion a definitive break from work - Millennial staff often times want more fluid arrangements since they are noted as being a generation that more often then not, sees everything as part of their whole lives. The challenge here is making sure that work isn't too dominant.

8. If workload across the organization is hindering your staff's ability to take time off, reduce it from the top with purpose and conviction.

After all, non profits aren't playing a short game. You all are playing long games and thus, need to ensure that your staff have the same understanding. Burning out today represents the short game. So, being proactive and realizing that there's work to do tomorrow and many more days and years thereafter is necessary in order to contextualize the impact and reach. It also dictates how staff decide to show up and show out at work.